Links for August 30th

W3C: Personal names around the worldThe World Wide Web Consortium has put together this great document about how people's names differ globally, and the implications of those differences on website and database development. I've long preferred simply providing a "name" field—none of this "first name" "last name" business—and this reassures me that this is the right path. Even folks not interested in website development would find the first half of this pretty interesting.

Gallup: Presidential Job Approval CenterThis is a great little web app from Gallup, albeit one trapped in Flash without an API and lacking the ability to link to any data within it. They've got presidential approval data going back to Truman. Interestingly, Obama's popularity thus far mirrors most closely that of Reagan.